Epic Outing
November 2, 2020
I had to cancel two trips today due to the giant winds again, but was able to rebook someone for another body of water. Tino was flexible and switched his scheduled Monday to Sunday instead. With the next couple of days looking unfishable, I guess I’ll just have to relax. Yeah right!
We hit the water by 7:30, new time and Tino hooked up on his very first cast! Although it’s never good to catch a fish on your first cast, it’s even worse to lose one, as he found out. We were dropshotting an area and the fish just weren’t cooperating! Several short strikes and missed fish followed before we just decided to move. I was looking for active fish and was determined to find some!
We switched it up, throwing hard baits and I was immediately hit. It turned out to be a fall fish and didn’t have much of a fight. At least in the beginning that was! Seconds after hooking into the chub like fish, there was a giant boil and the line started going off the reel. I knew exactly what had happened and passed the rod to Tino to enjoy the fight! Mr. Musky had decided to have breakfast and it was game on! This was the second year in a row that we had a toothy experience with the trip last season being the same. Hopefully he would be able to land this fish as well.
After following the lunge for about 5 minutes and almost getting a look at it, he had enough. The musky just opened its mouth and let the fall fish go. We were left with a scarred chub but at least it was still alive! I had to take a couple of pics of the lacerated bait, just for the memory! Amazingly, this little guy swam off too!
We went right back to casting the same baits and soon started catching some nice bass. When the action slowed down, I moved deeper and it began all over again. At one point it was practically every couple of minutes that a rod was bent. Tino even managed to boat a nice walleye that unfortunately had to be returned due to its size! The numbers were going up quickly and there were even a couple of double headers! We were on them big time!
I had really wanted to get Tino into some larger fish and pulled away from the numbers area to try somewhere deeper. Several casts later, he was tight to his largest bass of the day. Although it wasn’t a monster, it was a real good one and worthy of some pics.
We had been holding in this area for a while out of the strong winds when it started to rain. Ironically the winds diminished soon after and at least the rain wasn’t horizontal anymore! We could deal with the wetness as the temps were quite respectable and decided to go back to the hard baits once again. The numbers were great and many more fish were caught in the time we fished them too!
Tino was hoping to take a couple of walleye home with him today, after having to release his earlier catch. I told him that I had an area that he might be able get some and we headed there, in the rain. Well let’s just say that he not only brought a few fish home but we put a beat down on the eyes too! Most were released in the time we were there, but a few of them were harvested for his dinner tonight!
Today was another juggling act due to the weather, but I was able to make it work. Although I lost a couple of trips, I managed to salvage the day and then some. The fishing was good early and got better as it went on. The icing on the cake would have definitely been if we could have landed that musky in the morning, but at least the explosion and battle were epic! The final hour was pretty good with the walleye cooperating too! Overall it was another great day for fishing! Herm would have loved it! Sorry buddy, I just had to!
